The Next Stage of Evolution Part 3
by Mizar
Summary: The Connor/Angel groups get to know each other. Cameron finds out something shocking.


**Next Stage of Evolution Part 3:**

Angel woke before dawn. He looked at the woman sleeping next to him. She was very attractive, a beautiful mane of dark hair, and he knew she had piercing blue eyes. Oddly, he thought her concentrated glance reminded him of Dirty Harry. Determination personified.

But she wasn't perfect. He drew back the sheet. Her back showed evidence of healed scrapes, cuts and a gunshot wound. She had been fighting long and hard.

He didn't want to disturb her so he quietly slipped out of bed, put on a robe and went upstairs. Spike was holding a beer, staring out the window. He turned when Angel came into the room, already having heard the door to his room open downstairs. Good old vampire hearing, not quite as good as a dog's but close.

Spike looked at Angel and blurted out, "You sod, you GOT some!" One of Spike's inconsistencies was his uncanny ability to read people. It kept him from getting killed more than once. But it could be annoying because he was so often right.

"SHHHH! I don't want to wake the house! Angel hissed.

"Here I am, standing like one of the Queen's own, protecting this place all night and you shag the bird you want so desperately to protect. Or has the mission gone missionary?"

"I didn't just....it happened. We both..." Angel stammered.

"Were horny as a couple teens?" Spike smirked.

Angel calmed down. "We talked, she's been through a lot..."

"Capt. Forehead is a full service office, huh? You should be running the Love Boat."

"She's been alone, for years getting ready for what's coming, fighting. The constant worry about protecting her son. She had to spend a few years in a mental institution because she tried to convince other people that she wasn't insane, her story. I spent a century in self-pity. She inspires me."

"Watch it mate! Don't want to experience any of that true bliss, otherwise..."

"I know. I won't, I'm not..." Angel looked distant.

Spike's looked changed from complacency to arched-eyebrows. He looked at Angel. Angel looked at him, fearful.

"Are you mad? You're falling in love with her!" Angel looked pained. "You're already in love with her!" Spike said with incredulity. "You change loves like I change socks!"

"All we NEED now is for Angeles to rear his ugly, nasty head."

"That won't happen!" Angel said adamantly. "Last night was just...mutual need, tension being released. It won't happen again. I'll just have to tell her why."

"Ok then lets move on..." Spike said. Angel looked relieved.

"Gunn and Wes went out patrolling, the three sis's made an appearance, the hotel is protected, as much as it can be, the rest are upstairs in their rooms." Spike reported.

"Good, good." Angel walking into the kitchen, Spike followed.

"Did you drink all the blood?" Angel said in exasperatedly.

"All the fresh, yeah. Frozen stuff's in the freezer."

"I hate the defrosted kind." Angel said with resignation. But, he put the bottle of pig's blood into the microwave and turned it on.

Spike sat at the table, Angel waited for the microwave bell to go off, then took the bottle and poured some of the now defrosted, 98-deg. F blood into a glass. He had to remember to rinse it after, dried blood didn't even want to come off in the dishwasher.

He looked at Spike. Something hadn't been said. "What?"

Spike looked at him. "It wasn't my idea."

Angel looked a bit alarmed. "What?"

Spike sighed and said: "Wes called Buffy and Faith. They'll be her by tomorrow afternoon."

"Oh my God..." Angel said looking at Spike.

"Hey Mate! I haven't seen her (referring to Buffy) since the Hellmouth."

Angel considered him. He knew Spike loved Buffy, probably more than even he did. He didn't like it, but he had come to understand it.

"Spike..." Angel started.

"Look, Dark & Dour, I'm not going to jump her when she gets off the plane, but what we had, I have to know if it did mean anything."

Angel relented. "I know. I have no right to interfere...even though I was the love of her..."

Spike looked like he was getting angry. Angel looked at him and backed off.

Spike looked at him and said Wes had considered the situation, and had decided they needed the extra help. Angel grudgingly agreed with the assessment. Spike also said he'd talked at length to Derek and it appeared that Sky Net would likely send more and more terminators back to their time frame.

"I'm nackered. I'm going to hit the hay." Said Spike.

"Have a good sleep Spike." Spike hesitated for a second. That didn't sound like the usual jabs they constantly threw at each other. He went off to bed. He had one room in the basement, Angel had another.

* * *

John and Cameron had spent the night in the same room and had made love. One good thing about her being a terminator, no risk of pregnancy. John felt somewhat sad about it though.

"So what do you think about all this?" John asked her as they lay there, shortly after waking up. It was still dark out. Cameron now fell into a routine of regular sleep, less than a human needed though. She liked to be in bed when John was, when she wasn't watching out for him though.

"I think it's very interesting. An entire sub-domain of creatures, living below most people's perceptions of what is out there. Just like with the human-terminator dynamic, at least for now."

"Just when you think you've got a handle on things, it gets wayyyy more complicated!" John said.

Cameron trailed her finger up and down his arm. "None of these people seem like threats."

John was relieved to here her say this. Cameron was ultra-vigilant, she was always suspicious of new people so if she believed this, they were probably safe in here. He was tired of running for now. He smiled at her. He could clearly see her face in the bluish-white Moonlight. Beautiful as always.

"Do you want to get up?" She asked.

"It's still dark, I want to watch you fall back asleep in my arms." Cameron didn't really need more sleep, but she insinuated her head into the crook of his shoulder and did it anyway.

* * *

Sarah awoke, startled, but she often woke up like that. Angel wasn't there. What had she done, she thought to herself. The clock said 5:07am. She got up, put on her clothes and went upstairs.

She wandered into the kitchen. Angel was sitting at the large table. The kitchen was obviously added after the hotel had long since gone dormant. It wasn't a big industrial kitchen, but it was sizeable.

"Hi." Angel said. "Did you..uh...sleep ok?" Her hair was mussed, from sleep. He'd missed seeing that on a woman, for obvious reasons.

Sarah looked at him. "Yes...thank you, she smiled." She had slept well because it was the first time in months she'd been able to sleep without nightmares of some kind.

"Let me make you some breakfast." Angel offered.

"Alright." Sarah idly wondered how people in television shows and movies survived. They never seemed to accept offerings of food, took their coffee black and then never ate any of the food on their plates when they had it. At least, that's how she remembered it, she hadn't watched much TV for some time. But she was hungry.

"Sarah can I ask you something?" Angel said. Sarah's radar registered faint alert, a byproduct of having to be paranoid about any information given to people other than John, Derek or Cameron. She looked at angel and cautiously said, "Alright."

"I woke up around 3:00am and I heard your son John and Cameron...."

"You heard them upstairs from the basement?"

"Vampire hearing."

"Ah!" Sarah smiled at him.

"My son is having a thing with the robot, er, terminator."

"Oh! Ok...well...." Angel tried to sound nonchalant. He didn't do well.

"I know. My reaction was considerably more...intense than yours when I first found out. I wanted to dismantle her right then and there. But Cameron is different now. Her mind has evolved to a point where she acts and thinks in the same manner (more or less) as a human. With human emotions, at least, the beginnings of them. Whatever you want to call it, she loves him, deeply, and he loves her. I can't stop it, I tried, John is beyond stubborn."

Angel thought about his own son, Connor. He was the same way.

"I guess there's no harm. Since she's is his protector." Angel offered.

Sarah said, "Sometime back there was an accident, she was almost blown up in a car-bombing. When she came out of it, her programming had been altered and she believed her mission was to terminate John." Sarah looked scared at that point. "Short story short, she was fixed, after nearly being immolated by us so if this new evolution her mind has taken makes her a safer partner for John, then I have no problem with it, John is my only concern."

Angel made her scrambled eggs, bacon, toast, orange juice (squeezed) and coffee. She was impressed, he was a good cook, unlike her. He had some black coffee with her.

"So what is it you do, besides protect John?" Angel realized there must be more to this.

"I keep watch, in the newspapers, on the internet for any indication that people or companies are working on Sky Net related technologies. Metallurgy, computer science, artificial intelligence, high capacity portable power sources, all of it. Then, I stop them."

Angel looked at her.

She understood what he was asking. "No, I don't kill humans, it would be a tad hypocritical if I did, trying to stop an apocalypse and all. I just destroy the technology. John says it could be a fool's errand, but I have to try to stop Sky Net from being built."

"We have something in common." He said. She looked at him.

"I don't kill humans either. Not now, mostly."

"Mostly?" She asked.

"Awhile back, I ordered one killed. He was unrepentantly evil, he'd had more than once chance..."

She signaled she understood.

"Sarah, (he cleared his throat) about what happened..."

"Angel, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to go that far, it's just that...."

"It's ok, I was as involved as you, it felt soooo good!" He drew it out.

She smiled and looked down. "Yes it did. You're very...energetic for a 239 year old man."

He smiled, something he didn't often do. Watch it Angel, Spike was right...

"There's something I need to tell you." He was serious.

"Yes?" She said, somewhat concerned.

"Part of the curse the Gypsies put on me you don't know about...Ok...Here it is."

"Before I was Angel, I went by the name Angeles. I was one of the worst vampires who ever existed. I killed hundreds of people. When you're a vampire, you don't just do it for food, you do it for sport. You drag out the killing, because you live for it."

Sarah thought, "Alright, what have I gotten into here."

"The rest of the curse goes like this, if I experience one moment of true happiness, true bliss, I turn back into Angeles, the demon in me reasserts itself."

"Explains the brooding, doesn't it?" Sarah remarked.

"Oh, that, sort of, maybe...I just like to think." Then he brushed away the ruminations to concentrate on the conversation at hand."

She put her hand on his. "Join the club, I'm one of you. A brooder, not a vampire." He gave her a half smile.

"So you said the trigger is bliss?" She needed clarification.

"Technically, if I'm in love with the person I make love to..."

"Ah. We're lucky then."

"Not likely to be so lucky next time." He said and waited.

She regarded him. Somewhat worried. She hadn't loved anyone since Kyle. She'd had the odd fly-by-night lover, but no solid love relationship. She couldn't afford to.

"Angel, I..." She didn't know what to say. For the first time, she didn't feel so alone in her fight, she even felt like something positive might get done, some kind of forward momentum could be achieved. This opened up other possibilities.

"Hey, no, you don't need to respond, I just wanted to let you know..."

"Have you ever changed into Angeles, since you've been Angel?"

He felt a bit defensive. But he felt he could tell her. "Twice. Once when I did fall in love with a girl and then again when a Hollywood starlet gave me a happy pill in a drink so I'd loosen up and turn her into a vampire so she could have eternal life..."

"How did you change back?"

"The girl I loved killed me, I went to Hell, came back cured."

"Hell??"

He studied her reaction. "The second time, once the drug wore off, I was ok. But during those times, I was highly dangerous, enough to make one of your terminators look tame by comparison. Someone who would kill for the sheer joy of it."

"Wow." Sarah reacted without much shock or surprise, she'd seen too much, been through too much violence in her life to be phased the way a normal person would.

* * *

Eventually, they all got up and came to eat and afterward, Angel told the ones out of the loop about Faith and Buffy coming in the next day. The new group listened pretty intently, especially when Wesley outlined the particulars on the two slayers. John was intrigued.

Wesley suggested he and John use their computers to search for new links about Sky Net, Cameron, after being assured by Angel that the hotel was protected went off with Illyria to spar, Derek went to reconoituer the neighbourhood with Gunn, Spike kept sleeping.

* * *

"This is where I learn to focus combat strategy." Illyria had brought Cameron to the old ballroom. They'd since cleaned it up, put a mat surface down on the floor to absorb body throw shock. "I generally spar with the blond-haired half-bree-, vampire." She still had trouble with non-purebloods. "He's funny, he gets so angry with me."

"Why do you want to make him angry?" Asked Cameron.

"Amusement. When I ruled this planet, I constantly looked for ways to be amused."

"But you don't rule it now."

"No..." Cameron detected a faint hint of disappointment from Illyria.

"So what are you exactly?" Illyria said in that typical demanding voice.

"I'm a cybernetic organism. A metal skeleton, with a nuclear power source, surrounded by living human tissue."

"A hybrid?"

"Not originally, the human tissue was only a disguise, designed to allow us to infiltrate human population groups."

"So you could kill them."

"Yes." Cameron seemed a bit anxious about this statement.

"But your lover John reprogrammed you in the future and sent you back here."

"Yes."

They had begun sparing. Illyria gave Cameron a probing hit on her arm with her forearm. The termator parried the blow easily and did a roundhouse kick that Illyria dodge as easily.

"Your kind aren't programmed with emotion, how can you love the human?"

Cameron was a bit curious as to why this being used the term, "human" in the descriptive sense.

"You are human, correct Illyria?"

"Not originally, I was a god, the most powerful one in many dimensions. I ruled Earth. I took the human shell of a girl when I was released from eternal rest."

Cameron wasn't sure she understood all of it. She was grabbed by Illyria from behind around her neck, she broke the hold by flipping up, over and behind Illyria, then landed a kick to Illyria's back that sent her sprawling. Illyria wasn't completely concentrating on the sparing, Cameron noted certain autonomic responses inconsistent with total concentration, when her feet hit Illyria's back. She decided to probe a bit.

"What happened to the human whose body you took?"

"She's no more."

"She died?"

"Yes."

Illyria had gotten up and they had began parrying each other's blows.

"Did you know the person?"

"No, not really. I just assumed her body, but I have some of her memories."

"Was she good?"

Illyria seemed taken aback by this.

"Good?"

"Yes, was she a friend or enemy to the people downstairs?"

"She was...a friend."

"They must have been angry when you killed her."

"Yes, especially one."

"Did the one love her?"

"Yes, he did..."

"Then why do they allow you to stay, to live?"

"I...they could have killed me. They let me live, they saved me when the power this shell contained almost destroyed the shell."

Illyria used a judo move to flip Cameron onto her back. Cameron knew the move, broke the fall by slapping her arms down hard and righted herself immediately.

Both were now sweating, the moves and blows they'd exchanged would have rendered a human unconscious or dead by then.

"But now you love the one who used to love the human whose body you inhabit?"

Illyria stopped dead. "How do you know that?!" She was shocked.

"Your autonomic responses told me."

Realization crossed Illyria's face. This was a highly-complex machine. "Yes, unlike yourself, I've always possessed emotions. It used to allow me to glory in the destruction I reigned down on races lesser than mine, but now it weakens me...I do love...Wesley."

"Because despite what you did to the one he loved, he helped you?"

"Yes, that is it, partly."

"You're lucky. Emotions are new to me, hard to control." Said Cameron.

"You love the warrior boy. How did your emotions develop?"

"The scientists aren't sure. They just do with terminators sometimes."

"Something happening at the sub-atomic level, a quantum mechanical change they can't see or divine. Come here."

Cameron at first through it might be a ploy to introduce a new attack move, but Illyria did't strike, she put her hands on Cameron's head and closed her eyes. Cameron was ready in-case this was a ploy.

Illyria looked inward with her mind. She could see metal infusing with human tissue, the human tissue replacing metal at the sub-atomic level, particularly in the head. She released Cameron's head.

"You have had that...chip removed after your initial programming?"

Cameron wondered why she'd ask that. "Yes, a few times. For a mission and when my programming went bad."

"It can't be done again."

"What?"

"Your emotional development is related to a migration of human tissue into and in-place of some of the material of the electronic brain. If they remove it again, you'll lose any emotions you've developed and I could irreparably damage your ability to function."

Cameron was shocked. She was scared. At some point, they might need to remove the chip to do a mission, she couldn't tell John. But the thought of losing what she now had terrified her.

Illyria tilted her head quizzically. Then realized what Cameron was thinking.

"You can't do it."

"What?"

"If you remove the chip, not only will it destroy your own faculties, the chip itself will not function as a brain unto itself."

So, that function was no longer feasible. In a way, she was vastly relieved because it meant there was no way what she had could be lost, at least not by any mission, but she also believed that some of her usefulness to John was compromised. She looked at Illyria.

"There is more." Illyria said.

Now what? Cameron was somewhat surprised by her emotional reaction. Too much too fast.

"Your entire body is undergoing the same kind of change. From what I can determine, at the end of it, your entire body apart from your bones, their connection points, and the power source and its connections to those parts, anything that is composed of non-amorphous metal is...evolving to human tissue."

Now Cameron looked truly scared.

"We should sit down, I've seen the humans do this in situations of high stress." Said Illyria.

They sat down on a bench.

"Please tell me exactly what is going to happen to me."

Illyria could see the fear in her eyes. She took Cameron's hand. Illyria figured that it offered comfort since the humans did it.

"Part of the changes will include human organ growth. You will need to ingest food like the humans."

"I eat small amounts now."

"You'll be eating as much as they do."

"You'll develop a brain, lungs, a normal stomach, heart, kidneys, liver, spleen...Your muscles will operate in tandem with the artificial ones"

Is that all? Thought Cameron, astonished.

"Your body cell DNA structure is female."

"Yes...?" Terminator production used male or female body cells to start the process. Cameron's mind was a blur.

"In a year, your body transition will be essentially complete, with functional female reproductive organs."

Cameron was shocked. What was she going to do? She began to sob.

Illyria felt for her. Her own transition to being susceptible to emotional responses had been unbearable at first. She put her arms around Cameron and let her continue to cry.

"Don't worry. Your strength and stamina will be the same as they are now. You won't lose that."

"I might lose more than that."

"John? Why? Do you think he desires you because you are some kind of novelty to him?"

"No, no I don't. But being human might drastically lessen whatever usefulness I'll have, I might not be able to do the job I have to do."

"Please, don't tell anyone what you've found out, please?"

"I won't, don't worry. You are a good sparing partner."

Cameron smiled and hugged her. This was the first time anyone had done this to Illyria.

"You should tell Wesley what you feel."

"I'm afraid...that it might not be reciprocated."

"John said if you don't ask, you don't get."

Illyria would seriously consider it.

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